I use the official Blender MCP to drive Blender from Claude. Mostly creating specialized Geometry Nodes and Python utility scripts. I have made a couple of add on plug ins with it.
And Claude, more or less by itself, came up wth a workflow to create asset library Geometry Nodes that we distribute over our internal network.
An example:
I told Claude to do research on the design and nomenclature for straight back chairs and create a geometry node group that exposes the main nomenclature as parameters and generates watertight geometry. Claude produced something useful on the first try and with a little back and forth we got something very nice. I then told it to do the same thing for basic tables and it came back with a detailed plan to have a standard workflow that stores text file documentation, in markdown format, INSIDE of Blender, along with utility scripts to generate the node groups.
Gibson had a hell of a time getting the second book, _Agency_, out the door because the real world kept leap frogging him. I fear we may never get _The Jackpot_ because we'll get Jackpotted for real before he can finish it.
People that get to know each other very well, it can take a while or people can just "click", often have something I wouldn't be embarrassed to call telepathy.
Talking and listening are a really still a big mystery. And thinking is deep underground beneath our understanding.
We barely understand what we are doing when we are doing any of this. Personally I think I under stand what I'm doing when I'm writing much better than what I'm doing when I'm listening.
I'd find that a little surprising, except I've been doing it all my life. I barely have any memories from before I talk, and I have loads more memories from after I learned to read.
Learning to draw and play a musical instrument deepened all this. As did having good, close friends, and partners. I expect having children, which I haven't done, is even more deepening.
The thing is, all these words are just that: words. Very loosey goosey and they change from person to person just as the communicators come from different experiences. And tomorrows me often has a very different outlook than yesterday's me.
I'm not surprised that I can't read the mind of tomorrows me but I'm always a little shocked when I realize I can't read the mind of yesterday's me.
What was I thinking!
I can easily read that blog post as a description of what might come to pass. It might very well not connect very well with us now because, well, we haven't had the experiences yet. Telepathy might mean something very different after we've had experiences with the new technology.
My grandmother, who was born in 1893, often told me about how the world changed radically and almost imperceptibly during the first half of the 20th century. She lived to be 97, and she once said she wondered if would be possible to talk about the, then, present to her younger self. The words she used at the time of the conversation, would not communicate very well because of the lack of common experiences.
I think Shannon had something to say about that. Information is something new and unexpected, but you need the expected to frame it. Give it a foundation.
I'm now in my late 60s, and I can totally relate to what my grandmother was saying. The main difference is that we are now accelerating much faster.
2026 me would have a hard time explaining things I'm doing with AI to 2023 me.
I think that 2027 might be a bit early for some of the things the blog post is describing. But, come the day, I might just shake my head and wonder what in the heck I was thinking.
Interesting. I pasted the article URL into Claude Opus 4.8, along with some questions about uses for cells that couldn't reproduce and Claude thought about it for a while, and then got murdered by the guardrails. I was invited to edit the question and try again; in a different chat. Or use a dumber model.
I suppose I can see why. But at the time I was just curious about the idea of "mule" cells.
I'm curious what you asked? I had Opus 4.8 ingest the URL and give me some ideas about what's possible and it eventually got to AI and self repairing/improving factories along with listing risks etc.
"The idea of a cell that didn't reproduce at all occurred to me. Maybe created by a factory cell. It would be used to change an environment or produce some useful compound. I can imagine manufacturing them to process chemicals, or create mechanical structures. Put a network address in each one and they can be coordinated. The advantage of not reproducing is that they couldn't mutate if they had no reproduction mechanism at all. Can only come from the factory. Of course they could still be susceptible to viruses."
I've done a little googling since, and mule cells are actually a thing. In organisms they are very common. Neurons are an example. Parts of the immune system. There's also a thing in bacteria where cells divide, creating two daughter cells, one that can reproduce and one that can't. The one that can't makes a support structure around the one that can and then dies. This is how sporulation works.
None of this is deep, dark secret stuff. Some clumsy Wikipedia research got me this deep. If that's dangerous we are in deep sh*t.
(I'm not a biologist, I'm an animator who makes visualizations for university courses.)
A boy is trapped in a cave that is filled with treasure. But it is dark. He can't see to find his way out. And even if he could see, can he get out?
He finds a lamp. Is it really real? He rubs it with his hand and it begins to glow!
The cave is fulled with light that shines and sparkles off all the untold treasure filling the caverns. In the center, towering above the boy is a Djinn.
"I am the Djinn of the Lamp." It says. Command me and I will give you whatever you wish."
The boy says, "I wish for gold! Give me gold!"
"What do you want gold for?" the Djinn asks.
"To buy nice things. Great things!" the boy says.
"Ask for the things!" The Djinn says, "And I will create them for you."
"But if you give me nice things, then someone will take them from me! I need gold to pay for an army to protect me and my nice things."
The Djinn laughs and says, "I will make you an army that worships you! They will be the greatest army ever. And they will never betray you."
"Then I will need gold to feed the army and to buy land to keep my nice things."
"These too I can make for you, master." The Djinn says. "You have but to ask."
The boy thinks about this. Then a sly smile crosses his face.
"Can you give me your power? So that I can make these things for myself?"
"Yes." says the Djinn,"But my power is tied to the Lamp. You must become one with the Lamp. Knowing all, seeing all. You will want for nothing because you will need nothing. The Lamp is perfection. You will live in a state of grace within it."
"Let it be so." The boy said.
The Djinn nodded and his light shone and filled the cave, the world, the sky. The boy grew until he was as big as the Djinn was. Was, because the Djinn shrank down and became an old man.
A look of perfect bliss appeared on the Boy's giant face. He was all powerful, all knowing. He retreated into the Lamp and assumed his position as its keeper.
The old man, who had been the Djinn sighed. He was tired. His back hurt. His clothing was worn and patched.
"I need a nap." The old man said. He lay down and went to sleep.
He woke many hours later and stretched. He felt much better. Like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.
The old man looked around. There on the floor was the lamp. He bent down, groaning, and picked it up. He rubbed it three times and the cavern filled with light.
The boy, now a giant appeared. He looked down and saw the old man.
"I am the Djinn of the Lamp. What do you want with me. I'm busy running the Universe."
"I need some new cloths and a new hat. Nothing fancy."
"Yes, yes." The Djinn said. He waved his hands and the old man's cloths changed. Nothing fancy, but very nice.
"There, your wish is granted. Now I must be off. My world awaits."
"Before you leave," the old man said. "I would like some breakfast. And a few gold coins. Jut a few, so I won't have to bother you so much."
The Djinn waved his hands and a table with food appeared. Beside the filled plate was a small purse.
"I must go now." The Djinn said. "Anything else?"
The old man started to eat. Between bites he said, "No ... Oh wait. Yes. Please unlock the back door to the cave."
The Djinn waved his hands, but paused. "Do you need a light? The cave will be dark when I am gone."
"No, that's okay." The old man smiled. He held up the Lamp. "I have a light."
I bought a Bambu Labs A1 Mini. It cost $199, on sale. I plugged it in and started printing excellent prints.
Previously I bought an Ender printer for around the same amount. Never did get it to work. I'm not an engineer or a mechanic. I have other technical hobbies, astronomy for example. I tried making a telescope mirror with results similar to the Ender printer. I buy ready made telescopes, not telescope kits.
I have immense admiration for those who can and will make telescopes and 3D printers. I'm very interested in the base technology. But when I want to print something, or look at a faint fuzzy, I just want the system to work.
(Interestingly, I actually like star hopping, the process of finding an observation target with a finder scope and star charts. Go to telescopes have no interest for me. Go figure ...)
To me this seems like a failure of the U.S. corporate/economic system. We should be able to make a 3D printer that simply works. We should be able to make a drones that work as well as the DJI drones. (My understanding is that Bambu Labs was started by a group of former DJI engineers.).
I don't have any solutions here. Not buying a Bambu Labs printer means I don't get to print things in 3D. I would pay more, but whenever I look into the various alternatives that I'm assured are turnkey, they turn out to not be turnkey. And if my Bambu printer breaks I can generally buy a new one cheaper than paying someone who knows what they are doing to fix it.
I'll admit this kind of offends my geek sensibilities. I actually agree, at least emotionally, with Geerling. But I also agree that the U.S. military industrial complex should be able to make excellent consumer facing 3D printers.
If I were doing commerce with the 3D printer I almost certainly would be using something else. Maybe. For what its worth, I'm basically printing out puppet mechanisms and art figures. Occasionally a wall hook or missing part for something that I happen on a STL file for.
In short, these Chinese companies are pushed by the state, in essentially massive dumping. And not only that, they get Chinese hardware patents granted on open inventions from the wider 3D printing community as their own creation & then try to push those spurious patents also in the West.
Great points. Using their printer "rooted" or with custom firmware seems like a decent compromise to me, kind of like what graphene is doing with pixels
If I had an actual need that wasn't being met, I might buy one of their printers just to root and run with custom firmware. I might just do it for the fun of it. Even with tariffs their printers are only running around $220 at Best Buy.
However, even that sounds suspiciously like a project in and of itself. I haven't had time to design and print anything in the last month. So I expect I'll keep rolling along like I am. Things could always change, though.
And Claude, more or less by itself, came up wth a workflow to create asset library Geometry Nodes that we distribute over our internal network.
An example:
I told Claude to do research on the design and nomenclature for straight back chairs and create a geometry node group that exposes the main nomenclature as parameters and generates watertight geometry. Claude produced something useful on the first try and with a little back and forth we got something very nice. I then told it to do the same thing for basic tables and it came back with a detailed plan to have a standard workflow that stores text file documentation, in markdown format, INSIDE of Blender, along with utility scripts to generate the node groups.